


Giant Icecube of Death

by fictionalcandie



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-15
Updated: 2011-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>This is the second time in an Intergalactic Standard Year that he’s crashed on a deserted ice-planet and almost frozen to death, and he’s been aware both times that they were totally his fault and also completely avoidable, so, yeah, Kris is an idiot and he knows it. It would be a lot less humiliating, though, if it hadn’t been the same planet both times.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Giant Icecube of Death

Kris is an idiot.

This is the second time in an Intergalactic Standard Year that he’s crashed on a deserted ice-planet and almost frozen to death, and he’s been aware both times that they were totally his fault and also completely avoidable, so, yeah, Kris is an idiot and he knows it.

It would be a lot less humiliating, though, if it hadn’t been the same planet both times.

—

Kris had known he shouldn’t have left Conway, much less the Arkansad System, and he especially shouldn’t have done it in his ancient Ford Starstang space-sport. The thing barely ran in Conway atmo — trusting it for intergalactic flight was probably one of his worst ideas _ever_. (Maybe not as bad as letting Katy think he was seriously considering going into accounting, like her father, when the whole time he’d been filing papers to get his out-of-system performers license to represent humanity as a musician in the stars, but definitely bad.)

It wasn’t like he could have known that when he crashed it would be on the Giant Icecube of Death [official designation: FC–846R], though. He might not have left, if he’d known.

But he _had_ left, and there he was, huddled next to the hull of his wrecked ship, wishing that at the very least he’d worn a warmer flight suit. He couldn’t feel his toes. Or his fingers. Or his… other bits.

He _could_ have crash-landed somewhere exotic, like one of the Glamazon planets, or one of the resort asteroids along the Caribbean Belt. Only Kris had the worst luck ever and was going to die alone on a planet with a constant blizzard, and piles of snow that moved if you stared at them for too long.

The sub-zero temperature was probably making an irreparable mess of his guitar, too.

And actually, that moving pile of snow that Kris was looking at had a strange black and blue bit on the top of it. Weird.

 _Huh_ , thought Kris, taking a break from his mental whining just in time to notice that he’d stopped shivering. (That was bad, right?)

Then the snow pile got a little closer, and Kris realized that it was a _person_ , in a space-suit too shiny to actually look like snow, now that Kris got a good look at it, with a mess of black hair peeking from under the hood.

The person raised an incredibly slanted black eyebrow and smiled, white like the snow. “Well, don’t _you_ look blue,” he said, in a strangely musical voice, and leaned forward, presumably to get a better look at Kris’s alleged blue-ness. His hair fell away as he moved and Kris caught a glimpse of pale, pointed ear, and—

Oh.

Glamazon.

So, Kris got to see one before he died, after all.

“Hey,” said the Glamazon in a different tone, his smile slipping as he crouched and leaned even closer. Kris realized he’d maybe been staring without responding for longer than he’d thought.

The Glamazon’s skin was sparkling. It was distracting.

“ _Hey_ ,” he said again, “are you okay, man? Not frozen solid yet?”

Kris blinked, and for a second all he could see was glitter and wide, concerned blue.

“My guitar died,” he said, and saw confusion cloud the Glamazon’s eyes.

Then Kris passed out.

—

Kris isn’t heading for adventure and musical success, this time. He’s going home, to his family, to the Arkansad System, where there are no six-foot-tall aliens with blue eyes and unearthly voices, who smile at Kris but don’t want him.

He’s huddled next to the same stupid Starstang, though — clearly not as fixed as he thought; he should have just accepted the ride with Tommy and Allison, but it was entire systems out of their way — and wondering why he never learns to dress warmly.

Probably because it doesn’t usually snow on Arkansad planets, and Glamazons are apparently too fabulous to crash anywhere, ever.

Stupid Glamazons.

Kris has been on the Giant Icecube of Death for hours, and he’s starting to wonder if this time he really _will_ die, when a familiar Glamazonian-style shuttle breaks atmosphere and comes to land several dozen yards from Kris and his wreck.

Kris is more surprised than he probably should be when Adam emerges and stalks toward him.

It’s like deja vu, only this time with a black space-suit, and a fierce scowl on Adam’s sparkling face, his ridiculous eyebrows drawn together low on his forehead.

“You,” he announces, once he’s in hearing distance, “are an _idiot_ , Kristopher.”

—

Kris woke up in a medical bay, surrounded by sparkling faces and friendly smiles. The ship he was on, he learned, was Captain Lambert’s _Aftermath_ , currently in the process of docking at the Angel City Starport on the Glamazon home planet.

Oh, and Kris had been suffering from severe hypothermia, but they had excellent doctors onboard and he was going to be just fine.

And the Captain had instructed them to tell him, as soon as he woke up, that his guitar had survived.

Several hours later, the Glamazon who’d saved Kris visited the medical bay. He introduced himself as Adam.

His smile was even wider than it had been on the ice planet.

—

“I know I’m an idiot,” says Kris, extra stiffly because his lips have been pretty numb for a while now. “I certainly don’t need _you_ to tell me.”

Adam glares at him through the whirling snow. “What were you _thinking_?”

Kris clenches his jaw — hard to do with teeth chattering as badly as his are — and doesn’t answer.

“Fine.” Adam huffs. “Don’t tell me, then. Just… come on, before you pass out again. You look half-frozen already.”

Kris doesn’t move.

“Kris,” says Adam, warningly.

Kris ducks his head and stays put.

“I am not letting you die here,” Adam adds.

“I don’t _want_ to die,” mutters Kris. He wonders if maybe one of the others would come rescue him instead, if he waits long enough.

“Which means,” Adam goes on as if Kris hadn’t spoken, and suddenly he’s crouched in front of Kris, gloved hands warm and fuzzy on his cheeks, “that you are getting in my shuttle before you turn into a Kriscicle, even if I have to carry you there.”

“Why do you care?” snaps Kris.

Adam looks like he’s been slapped.

Kris instantly feels guilty. “Sorry,” he says, and sighs. “What are you even doing here, Adam?”

“Saving you, again,” says Adam, which doesn’t answer as much of Kris’s question as he’d like it to. “But this time your death-trap of a planet-hopper can stay here, so you can’t run away from me anymore.”

—

Adam had wanted to know what Kris was doing so far away from home all on his own, and because he’d saved Kris’s life — and also, most likely, because Kris was probably on some kind of strange Glamazonian drugs, and even regular human drugs made him really loopy — Kris told him everything.

Everything.

From growing up staring into the night sky and playing music at the stars, to Katy divorcing him to marry a firefighter because he spent too much time writing songs about space and what felt like the whole planet being on her side, to kissing his mama goodbye and taking off in his second-hand ‘ship. Which led, of course, to the nav system failing, followed by the engine, and he was lucky that life-support had held out until after he’d actually crashed on that frigid hellhole.

“So,” said Adam, watching Kris with what looked like sympathy. “Where are you going to go now?”

Kris had no idea. He said so.

“You’re welcome to stay here, if you’d like. I’d love to hear you play — and we love musicians here in Angel City.”

“Yeah?” Kris bit his lip, considering. “Can I call my mama?”

In answer, Adam smiled.

Kris stayed.

—

“I like my ship,” Kris lies loyally.

Adam snorts. “Come on,” he says again. “Just let me give you a ride, Kris. Please. We can do this later.”

“I’m not going back to Angel City,” says Kris. He curls his toes hard in his space boots, to make sure he can still feel all of them; he can, barely.

Adam freezes. Kris almost doesn’t notice, he’s shivering so hard.

“Where are you going?” Adam asks, slowly. His expression says maybe he doesn’t want to hear the answer.

“Home.”

At Adam’s confused look, Kris clarifies, “Conway. On Arkansad III.”

Adam’s eyes do something fierce and horrified. “You’re _leaving_ me?”

—

Adam took Kris home with him. It was supposed to be temporary, just until they found somewhere else for Kris to stay — but Kris liked living in Adam’s house, and Adam seemed not to mind having him there, so Kris just… didn’t leave, and Adam didn’t kick him out.

Adam introduced Kris to his friends, more Glamazons than Kris had ever imagined meeting. They were all amazing; Tommy, Terrence and Taylor, Bradley (who insisted on being called “Cheeks” for no reason that Kris could tell), Cassidy, the Al(isan/lison)s, the Cherry family — musicians and performers and— and _groupies_ , even — but every one of them bright and brilliant for more reasons than just their sparkling skin, Adam the most dazzling of any of them.

Kris adored them all.

Especially Adam.

The more time Kris spent with Adam, the more amazing Adam seemed. He was smart and talented (God, his _voice_ when he sang, it was just… unearthly) and sweet and eloquent, and the way he’d _look_ at Kris sometimes, and laugh when Kris said or did something funny, made Kris’s throat tight and his heart race in his chest.

And Kris hadn’t known it was possible to be as comfortable with a person, to _enjoy_ just being _near_ them as much, as he was with Adam.

He’d been working his way up to broaching the subject of Human/Glamazon relationships with Adam.

Then Sauli, from stupid _Finland_ , followed Adam home from one of his off-planet trips on the _Aftermath_ , and Adam _let_ him.

Kris didn’t need to ask how Adam felt about Human/Glamazon relationships, anymore.

—

“I’m going home,” Kris repeats, dully. He reaches up with cold-clumsy hands and wipes snowflakes from his eyes before they start leaking and he winds up with ice-trails down his cheeks. “You’re not my home, so, sure, I guess that means I’m leaving you.”

Adam is blinking rapidly; his hands, which slipped to Kris’s shoulders, have tightened. “But…” He looks bewildered. “Why?”

“I miss my family.”

“You see them every time you vid-call them,” says Adam. “Which is everyday.”

“I still miss them.”

“We’ll invite them to visit for your birthday next month,” Adam announces. “We have the room.”

 _Not with your blonde Finlander there_ , Kris thinks, and says, “I miss pie.”

“I’ll make you pie,” says Adam.

“You can’t even run the auto-nuker without something exploding, Adam.”

“I’ll learn,” he insists, starting to sound desperate.

Kris sighs heavily. This is exactly as awkward as he’d been afraid it would end up, which was why he’d avoided it before he’d left Adam’s place, and it’s clearly only going to get worse, because it doesn’t look like Adam’s going to give up until he gets the whole embarrassing truth out of Kris.

“Adam,” he says, gently — and hey, he’s stopped shivering, that’s probably bad, again — “I miss Conway.”

Adam’s face screws up unhappily; he doesn’t seem to have an argument for that. “When will you be back?” he asks.

“I’ll call you sometime,” says Kris. “When I’m settled.”

For a second, Adam doesn’t react. Then a look that Kris has never seen before takes over his face.

“No,” he says, voice firm. “No, you’re going to tell me, _right now_ , what happened, then I’ll take you to visit your other family, and when we get back I’ll fix whatever it is.”

Kris stares at the determination in Adam’s voice. He sighs again, and, helplessly, confesses, “I’m in love with you.”

The confusion is back on Adam’s face. “I know,” he says. “Or I _thought_ I knew, I mean, I hoped, but you’re leaving — Kris, why are you leaving me if you’re in love with me, too?”

Kris stares some more.

Adam stares right back, not even looking cold, when Kris is probably halfway to midnight-blue by now.

“ _Sauli_ ,” Kris finally spits.

Adam just looks even more clueless.

“You brought your boyfriend to live with us, Adam!”

—

Kris knew better than to let someone walk all over him — had learned the hard way, with Katy — and he knew to get away when something was only going to hurt him.

Kris had to leave, before his heart broke even more than it already had.

So he packed up almost a year’s worth of life on Californica, put it all in the beat-up old Ford that Adam had saved from the Giant Icecube of Death the same time he’d rescued Kris and the guitar. He said goodbye to all of his friends, wrote Adam the universe’s most ironic Dear John letter (how could you break up with someone when you were never together?), and left, all before Adam got back from his little pleasure cruise — with _Sauli_ — around Californica’s three moons.

—

Adam frowns. “Kris, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Oh, really? Then explain Sauli,” snaps Kris. Or, he tries to snap. He’s getting kind of numb, everywhere.

“Sauli _hired_ me,” Adam says, reasonably. “The Finnish holo-show he works on was thinking about expanding their filming sites, and as a personal favor to a mutual friend I agreed to fly him around to scout several possible locations. We’re not dating. We’ve never dated. I’m not interested in dating him.”

Kris opens his mouth to reply, then stops and narrows his eyes. “But _he’s_ interested in dating _you_ , right? I knew all that clinging to your arm meant something.”

“… were you jealous?” demands Adam, his eyes widening. “Is _that_ why you ran off like an idiot?”

Kris bites his lip.

“Oh, Kristopher,” says Adam, with the beginning of a fond, exasperated smile. “How do you not know that I’m all yours?”

“You are?”

Adam laughs, and smiles. He gets his arms around Kris and lifts him out of the snow, dropping a burning, lingering kiss to the corner of Kris’s frozen mouth.

“Let’s get you into my nice warm shuttle, baby,” says Adam. “I’ll send someone back down for your things.”

“Except for the stupid death-trap of a planet-hopper,” Kris reminds, his brain starting to feel kind of frozen, too. “I don’t need it anymore.”

“Except for that, yes,” agrees Adam. He’s already most of the way back to his shuttle. “And then we’ll go visit your parents, and ask them to come for your birthday.”

Kris tips his face into the crook of Adam’s familiar sparkly neck. “I love you, Adam.”

“I know you do, baby,” says Adam, carrying him up the ramp into the warm, quiet air of the shuttle. “I love you too. You _idiot_.”


End file.
